Friday the 13th Lore

I have this thing about Friday the 13th.... I love it!  For some reason its always a lucky day for me.  First off I was born on a Friday 13th (and then came home to live on Elm Street... I can't make this schiznat up).  If I had tests in school on Friday 13s I always made a good grade.  That Guy I Liked So Much In High School finally seemed to notice me and asked for my phone number on a Friday the 13th.  As an adult I always seemed to get good employee performance reviews or free lunches on Fridays 13s.

Usually when a new year approaches I will actually look ahead to see how many Friday 13s I can look forward to.  With as scatterbrained as I've been lately I failed to do so this year but in reading a random article just now I was informed that we have three this year, the maximum we can have in one year.

But unlike me, most people don't view Friday the 13th as lucky at all.  Some other tidbits:

* There are different theories on how Friday the 13th came to be, but the prevailing one is linked to The Last Supper. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th person to arrive at dinner, making 13 an unlucky number on any day of the week. Add to that the fact that Jesus died on a Friday, and Friday the 13th gets its bad rap.

*Although people are far less superstitious now than they were in the past, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in North Carolina estimates that 17 to 21 million people in the U.S. have a diagnosable phobia of Friday the 13th. The illness Is called friggatriskaidekaphobia. (We couldn’t make that up.)

*Part of the reason the number 13 is considered so treacherous, is simply because it’s right after 12. Numerologists consider 12 a “complete” number: 12 months complete a year, 12 signs complete the zodiac and 12 inches complete a foot.

*You may have noticed that most buildings leave out the 13th floor, but did you know that planes often lack a 13th row and some hotels eliminate a Room 13? In Florence, the house between 12 and 14 is actually addressed as 12 and a half.

*Some estimates suggest that the U.S. economy loses up to 900 million dollars every time there’s a Friday the 13th—many people avoid business deals, or even work altogether, on the allegedly doomed date.

*Fearing an increase in accidents, many Americans won’t hit the roads on Friday the 13th. While traffic crashes do peak on Fridays—probably due to alcohol intake—there’s no decisive data that Friday the 13th is more dangerous than other Fridays in the year.

*There’s no proof that natural disasters are more likely on Friday the 13th, but Australia’s biggest wildfire, Florida’s especially costly Hurricane Charley and Kansas’s “Great Flood of 1951” all occurred on a Friday the 13th.

*To prove Friday the 13th superstitions as nonsense, a group of affluent New Yorkers started a “Thirteen Club” in 1881. Thirteen people met every Friday the 13th and dined in Room 13. During the gathering, guests walked under ladders and through piles of spilled salt. Take that, superstitions.

*Some of our nation’s most famous 20th-century luminaries feared the day. Henry Ford declined to do any business, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt avoided travel. Rumor has it that FDR refused to roam not only on Friday the 13th, but also on the 13th day of every month.

Source: http://glo.msn.com/living/crazy-superstitions-for-friday-the-13th-6999.gallery

How do you feel about Friday the 13th?